1. Analyze policies and procedures to ensure organizational compliance with regulations and standards
2. Adhere to the legal and regulatory requirements related to health information management
3. Comply with ethical standards of practice
Case #1
Since May, you have been working with a recruiter to obtain a new position in HIM. Your
experience includes over ten years in inpatient and outpatient coding, you are an AHIMA-
approved ICD-10 trainer, and you have worked with your state association on coding
projects over the past two years. Nothing the recruiter has presented to you has been a
good fit, but in late September, the recruiter calls with positions open for coding auditor.
You have never done that type of work before, but are confident you could learn, and the
recruiter gets you a phone interview. During the conversation, the HIM manager for the
organization says that she sees you have been an auditor since May. You immediately
recognize that the HIM manager has the wrong impression of your experience.
Determine the appropriate course of action in response to the interviewer’s statement.
Provide justification based on the AHIMA Code of Ethics.
Case#2
An inpatient coder has come to you, the director of HIM, with concerns that she has been
instructed by the coding supervisor to code all bedside debridements as excisional. When
you discuss this with the coding supervisor, she explains that surgical trays are ordered for
the bedside and that physicians have been ignoring the queries requesting clarification.
Instead, they orally state that the debridements are always excisional. Therefore, she
issued the directive to the staff.
1. Use the ethical decision-making process to determine if this is an unethical situation and, if
so, what principle of the AHIMA Code of Ethics or AHIMA’s Standards of Ethical Coding it
violates.
2. If it is a violation, give your opinion of what the implications might be to the coder, coding
supervisor, yourself, and the organization.